It is raining and I stay indoors. The rain beats against the windows. It runs in waves down the tiles of the roof. Raindrops slither rhythmically along the telephone wires. I sit and watch out of the window. Down the hill distant buildings loom from the glowering fog. A student walks by on the street, her head bowed, her hands in her pockets. It rains and it rains. The patter against the tin coating on the lip of the window. The channel into the drain at the side of the road. All the cars have their windscreen wipers wiping at full speed. The wheels of the cars splash up water as the vehicles pass. A fine spray wets my face from the rain hitting the open window.
I have work with Steve soon, the pack-down of the display we put up yesterday. Before then I stay inside, watch game design videos on YouTube, play Hollow Knight, feel nicely glum. The rain falls, and my thoughts fall with it, splishing sploshing on the ground.
Thursday, 20 September 2018
Day 145: Hollow Knight again
The genre never exactly went away, but there's been a definite renaissance over recent years, with fledgling indie developers finding the concept well suited to small-scale game production, and mechanics from the genre filtering into more modern titles, with Dark Souls especially transposing the sense of isolation and the journey into the unknown into the shell of a 3D combat RPG.
In fact, of late it's like metroidvanias have become the pulled pork of videogames. Or, no. The Belgian saisons of videogames: a cult style thrust into the spotlight as the current in vogue choice for buyers who want to seem more discerning than the mainstream. Not quite the dry-hopped fruit-bomb IPA of the gaming world, but only a few rungs below.
Do you know what I'm saying? Not the spiced pumpkin latte, but perhaps the flat white.
So Hollow Knight, a Kickstarter-funded metroidvania from indie devs Team Cherry, is nothing if not obvious. Add in elements popularised by Dark Souls (borrowing from the thing that borrowed, thereby closing the circle) - such as the exact same death mechanic, the slow process of channelling your healing ability, a succession of punishing boss encounters, an overall sense of haunting loneliness and melancholy, and neutral characters met amidst the desolation who offer enigmatic, poetic, forlorn words in your ear - and you've got precisely the videogame that a 2017 videogame concept generator on the internet would spill out as a maximum amalgamation of cliches.
Except who the hell cares, when it's done this damn well? Yes, on paper it sounds laughably generic, but in reality it steps so confidently, speaks in its own assured voice, gets the basics so right, that it comes fiercely alive.
Hollow Knight is a microbrewed hipster saison so classy that it gives Saison Dupont a run for its money. It is pulled pork that you actually want to eat. It is a metroidvania almost as good as Super Metroid on the SNES, and in some regards it is better.
The wistful, elegiac soundtrack is wonderful, always of-a-piece, yet with each area completely distinct. Ambient noises are beautiful, scuttling limbs, buzzing wings, sounds muffled through walls of dirt, the plop of water droplets, the hiss of toxic lakes. And the visual design is just sumptuous. There’s the sense of regret and isolation and lamentation of Dark Souls, but none of the dirge. The drained and deathly blues and greys of the first few areas are perfect, but soon give out to lush and verdant caves, glittering crystal caverns, decaying fungi patches. The world of Hallownest is beautifully realised, and not half as isolating as it first appears. There’s a vibrancy and sense of life beneath the surface, uncovered as if turning stones in a forgotten shed to reveal a teeming insectoid realm.
The game feel is great. Your nail, your character's little sword, has a vicious, snappy swipe to it. Movement is precise, jumping has the right amount of float. There’s a dash that you can perform in mid-air, and a wall-climb that’s as satisfying as anything in Mario, not least because you have to wait a number of hours before you find it, going the long way round, then when you’ve got it those previous obstacles turn into an open playground. The sense of progression is well managed, with lots of backtracking through older areas, and what starts as a ghost town on the surface slowly comes to life as you meet or rescue denizens in the depths who begin to populate the abandoned buildings up top. This parallels your own journey of development, upgrading your strengths and abilities, coming back to once-feared enemies and now dispatching them with ease. But pushing forwards you always feel strained, your nerves taut, facing an unknown constantly more difficult and stressful than you want it to be. Which is exactly right.
I’m maybe a third, halfway, through the game currently, so I can’t say for certain, but so far Hollow Knight has been one of the better gaming experiences I’ve had of recent years. It’s good enough that I’m playing it right now in preference to Breath of the Wild, and I’ve yet to finish that on Switch.
Man, that’s a hell of a game though. Bravo Breath of the Wild. Bravo Hollow Knight.
Tuesday, 18 September 2018
Day 144: Hollow Knight
It is, however, perfect background noise for when I'm playing on my Switch. I've been playing a lot of Hollow Knight recently - a sumptuous, confident, mechanistically elegant metroidvania set in a haunting underground insectoid world of dripping leaves and squelching moss-lined walls and noxious fungus patches and little hissing pools of fetid water.
... But what's a "metroidvania"? It's a genre of videogame that takes its name from two iconoclastic series of the 8- and 16-bit eras - Nintendo's Metroid games, and the Castlevania series by Konami.
Metroidvanias typically involve exploring a strange and hostile environment with a mixture of platforming and combat challenges. You enter a new area and it's a maze, rooms with lots of exits, and you want to make sense of the space, gain dominion over it, but it's too large. There's maybe a path to the left, a path to the right, some ledges you can climb with another path higher up, and a bizarre well in the corner in a structure like a dragon's neck. Which way should you go? You venture a little down one path, and it opens onto a new room, with yet more pathways off from it. Is this even the right way? You head back, try another path. It winds downwards, past enemies, and you have to leap across little platforms to avoid a fall to your death. You make it across, but then this way too branches into multiple rooms, all with their own exits. You go down one, down another, you're hopelessly turned around, lost, anxious. And you haven't forgotten that higher path in the first room. Should you have gone that way?
And these aren't welcoming passageways, either. They're creepy, slimy, littered with skeletons and strange alien symbols. The music is imposing. It's like you're descending into a creature's lair, into the underworld, down into the catacombs of your own subconscious mind. You hate it. You want to head back to the surface and to safety.
But you force yourself to press on. You pick a path at random, and push forwards, facing whatever is in your way. You leap chasms, fight nasty enemies, travel ever onwards. And gradually you make sense of the space. Most of the potential routes actually finish in dead ends, or in obstacles you cannot yet surmount - canyons too wide, ledges too high, lakes of lava or barriers of stone you are too weak to break - but that you will need to return to later.
So mostly you find yourself channelled in one direction, with perhaps optional side journeys with a risk-reward factor you have to weigh up, a little loop through a difficult section with extra health or ammo at the end, and a drop back onto the main path after that. And maybe the main path is like a larger version of this loop, with a fearsome boss at the end, and some new ability offered if (when) you defeat the boss - boots that let you climb up walls, say, and you use the boots to climb up out of the room in which the boss was housed, and you find yourself appearing back out of the dragon-neck well in that very first room, having completed a circuit, descended into the unknown, faced your fears, and returned with treasure.
And now those boots will let you access some of the routes that were previously inaccessible - and the whole loop begins again, and slowly you start to map out the world, bring order to chaos, defeat bosses, hoover up trinkets, and the strange becomes the familiar, and you make this inhospitable world your home.
And then you push far enough and you find a passageway that looks different from the others, with strange flora growing from it, and arcane etchings on the walls. You go through, and you're in a brand new zone, and the enemies are larger, you haven't fought them before, you don't know their attack patterns, and you don't recognise anything, and you're lost, and scared - and the whole process begins anew.
And on you go, deeper and deeper, or higher and higher, to the centre of the game's world, to the final boss, and to victory over whatever in the universe glances out at you from the dark and makes you want to hide under the covers.
And that's a metroidvania. A hybrid of platformer, exploration, role-playing and action-adventure game, traditionally in 2D, about navigating a complex maze and upgrading your abilities so you can push further into that maze.
I was meaning to talk about Hollow Knight, but as ever I've waffled too long in the preamble, so I'll have to do that tomorrow.
Early night now because working with Steve again in the morning.
Ta ra x
Day 143: Egg do
Poorly again today. Got my shift covered and been resting up. Woke up with a side ache and my insides feeling dull and scooped out, like when I have an allergic reaction to egg (I’m allergic to egg, if you didn’t know). Not sure whether that’s what’s happened, or it’s just dodgy food that has triggered a similar reaction, but it’s not pleasant. It feels like acid is burning through the surface of my intestines, like my body is eating itself.
It’s not so bad now, just feel tired and weak. Memories of so many times I had a reaction as a kid - “an egg do” - that’s what my Mum used to call it. “We need to get Rob home, he’s having an egg do.” And then I’d spend the next 12 hours in agony, clutching my side and howling, throwing up over and over, everything in my stomach, and the stomach lining, and I’d drink water, and then throw that back up, and for a minute after being sick I’d feel slightly better, and then the pain would return, and it would be like a hot poker slowly burning out from my left side, inexorable, relentless.
Tangled on the sofa in damp sheets brought down from my bed. Up all through the night, watching late night telly with my Mum, all her programmes that were part of her adult world. Northern Exposure. ER. American shows with swearing and nudity, but I was allowed, because I was begging for something to take the pain away, and my mum couldn’t take the pain away, and she didn’t know what to do. Then too late even for television, and going through all the VHS tapes, Die Hard, Speed, anything frantic and violent and loud. For a few seconds as John McClane was running over broken glass spraying bullets from his machine gun I’d almost forget the pain - then I’d remember, and be sick again, and Mum would have to pause the tape. The old washing up bowl, sky blue, scratched - “the sick bowl” it’d be in the argot of our house, or just “the bowl”. “Rob’s having an egg do, better get blankets and the bowl, and put Die Hard on.” Vomiting bile into the sick bowl, crying, knowing there were still so many hours of it left. Putting my head on my mum’s lap, asking her to tell me a story about our family, the exploits of my uncles in their ne’er-do-well past, or how Grandma and Grandpa met, or just to read to me from something, from one of the many books crowding the house. Trying to focus on my breathing, to do breathing exercises, to let all the muscles in my body relax. The journey that pain takes you on, alone, into yourself. To let the pain go and let the pain go and let the pain go. Drifting gently out. The world stretching, the elasticity of darkness seeping in. Then waking in sweat and agony, exercises forgotten, scrunching handfuls of flesh in my side and screaming, please Mum please Mum please won’t you make it stop.
Not pain like that tonight. A lifetime ago. Now just hollowness, a dull ache, tired and low.
Need to go rest now. I wonder if Die Hard is on Netflix...
It’s not so bad now, just feel tired and weak. Memories of so many times I had a reaction as a kid - “an egg do” - that’s what my Mum used to call it. “We need to get Rob home, he’s having an egg do.” And then I’d spend the next 12 hours in agony, clutching my side and howling, throwing up over and over, everything in my stomach, and the stomach lining, and I’d drink water, and then throw that back up, and for a minute after being sick I’d feel slightly better, and then the pain would return, and it would be like a hot poker slowly burning out from my left side, inexorable, relentless.
Tangled on the sofa in damp sheets brought down from my bed. Up all through the night, watching late night telly with my Mum, all her programmes that were part of her adult world. Northern Exposure. ER. American shows with swearing and nudity, but I was allowed, because I was begging for something to take the pain away, and my mum couldn’t take the pain away, and she didn’t know what to do. Then too late even for television, and going through all the VHS tapes, Die Hard, Speed, anything frantic and violent and loud. For a few seconds as John McClane was running over broken glass spraying bullets from his machine gun I’d almost forget the pain - then I’d remember, and be sick again, and Mum would have to pause the tape. The old washing up bowl, sky blue, scratched - “the sick bowl” it’d be in the argot of our house, or just “the bowl”. “Rob’s having an egg do, better get blankets and the bowl, and put Die Hard on.” Vomiting bile into the sick bowl, crying, knowing there were still so many hours of it left. Putting my head on my mum’s lap, asking her to tell me a story about our family, the exploits of my uncles in their ne’er-do-well past, or how Grandma and Grandpa met, or just to read to me from something, from one of the many books crowding the house. Trying to focus on my breathing, to do breathing exercises, to let all the muscles in my body relax. The journey that pain takes you on, alone, into yourself. To let the pain go and let the pain go and let the pain go. Drifting gently out. The world stretching, the elasticity of darkness seeping in. Then waking in sweat and agony, exercises forgotten, scrunching handfuls of flesh in my side and screaming, please Mum please Mum please won’t you make it stop.
Not pain like that tonight. A lifetime ago. Now just hollowness, a dull ache, tired and low.
Need to go rest now. I wonder if Die Hard is on Netflix...
Monday, 17 September 2018
Day 142: It was the fish what done it
Ill tonight. Stomach is doing somersaults. Think I’ve eaten some dodgy food. Lying in the foetal position breathing slowly through my mouth while Fran watches The 100 on the computer, with the desk slid sideways and the TV twisted round so she can see it from bed. It’s loud; Fran can never hear the voices. “Can we just turn it up another two? I think the voices are especially quiet on this one.” The amount of programmes that have been mixed with voices especially quiet, you’d be amazed…
Fran eats breadsticks and Cheddars which she keeps calling Mini Cheddars to annoy me, and gets crumbs on the bed. They’re not Mini Cheddars. They’re just Cheddars, the big ones. I flick away crumbs, and we talk about God.
Fran: “Maybe we’re born an infinity number of times over and over but we forget every time and only God remembers, up there laughing at us.”
Me: “But is God born an infinity number of times? What’s he doing? What’s his deal?”
Fran: “No God is just watching it all.”
Me: “But I never get when they say that. God just is and that’s that. Why not just say we just are and that’s that? Why invent another layer of complexity? If you don’t know what God’s deal is then just admit you don’t know what our deal is and leave it there. It doesn’t explain a thing! It’s very--
Fran: “--Darling, shush.”
We stop talking about God.
I drift between asleep and awake and Fran makes a pizza and I try not to be sick. Fran draws a picture of us together and she shows me as I lie in bed. I’ve got a beard in the picture. She’s smooching me on the cheek.
Fran puts the picture down. I pat her hair and kiss her on the forehead, from my prone position wrapped in covers, like an infirm old priest. Just my luck if there was a God, and he was punishing me for not believing in him, although my money is on the dodgy fish.
Ahh, but who put the fish there?
God. OK. But who put God there? Who put him there? It doesn’t explain anything! It’s utterly superfluous! It’s already insane that all this is happening. Just leave it at that.
Fran can’t shush me on my own blog. I love having my own blog. I love not believing in God in a dumb way (I believe in us though. I do believe in us). I don’t love eating dodgy fish. But you can’t win them all.
Fran eats breadsticks and Cheddars which she keeps calling Mini Cheddars to annoy me, and gets crumbs on the bed. They’re not Mini Cheddars. They’re just Cheddars, the big ones. I flick away crumbs, and we talk about God.
Fran: “Maybe we’re born an infinity number of times over and over but we forget every time and only God remembers, up there laughing at us.”
Me: “But is God born an infinity number of times? What’s he doing? What’s his deal?”
Fran: “No God is just watching it all.”
Me: “But I never get when they say that. God just is and that’s that. Why not just say we just are and that’s that? Why invent another layer of complexity? If you don’t know what God’s deal is then just admit you don’t know what our deal is and leave it there. It doesn’t explain a thing! It’s very--
Fran: “--Darling, shush.”
We stop talking about God.
I drift between asleep and awake and Fran makes a pizza and I try not to be sick. Fran draws a picture of us together and she shows me as I lie in bed. I’ve got a beard in the picture. She’s smooching me on the cheek.
Fran puts the picture down. I pat her hair and kiss her on the forehead, from my prone position wrapped in covers, like an infirm old priest. Just my luck if there was a God, and he was punishing me for not believing in him, although my money is on the dodgy fish.
Ahh, but who put the fish there?
God. OK. But who put God there? Who put him there? It doesn’t explain anything! It’s utterly superfluous! It’s already insane that all this is happening. Just leave it at that.
Fran can’t shush me on my own blog. I love having my own blog. I love not believing in God in a dumb way (I believe in us though. I do believe in us). I don’t love eating dodgy fish. But you can’t win them all.
Sunday, 16 September 2018
Day 141: Singing to get out
It is Saturday so I pour pints of San Miguel. I serve Jagerbombs and double vodka Redbulls and tequilas with salt and lime. I wipe the bar top. I float the tills. The change box is out of 50ps. I get 50ps from the office. I wipe the bar top. I serve pink gin and tonics. Rhubarb gin and tonics. House gins with lemonade. I stack glasses. Wash glasses. Put glasses away. I refill toilet roll. I wipe the bar top. I serve dry white wines, rosé wines, glasses of prosecco. I top up stouts. Correct staff till mistakes, refloat the tills. I wipe the bar top. I pour Tuborgs and Budvars and pints of keg flow bitter. Half bitter shandies. Half lagers and lime. I make coffees. Take coffees to tables. Collect glasses from the floor. I shake espresso martinis, churn mojitos, look up the spec for raspberry chews.
A keg beer runs out so I go upstairs to clean it. I put the line on water, go downstairs to pull it through. Gas sputters out, and nothing more. I go back upstairs. The inflow pipe is above the surface of the water in the water butt. I move the butt closer, unravel the hose, attach it to the tap in the sink, fill the butt with water, fill the bucket for line cleaner. I go back downstairs. The bar is busy, so I serve. I pull the line through to water. Go upstairs and switch the pipe to the line cleaner bucket; downstairs to pull it through. I wait. I serve. I pull through more line cleaner. Wait; serve. Upstairs I switch the pipe back to water, downstairs and pull it through. Upstairs I heft a Beavertown Lupuloid keg into place, find a coupler that fits the keg, look for the spanner, find the spanner, unscrew the product and gas lines from the old coupler, screw them onto the new one. The coupler is wet and the spanner is wet and my hand slips, and I jab myself in the arm. I yell. I get the coupler attached, clamp it onto the Lupuloid keg. I fill the float with beer. I go downstairs, look for the Lupuloid lens. It isn't in the plastic wallet for upcoming beers. I look through all the alphabetised drawers. Nope. It isn't on the shelf in the spirit cupboard. It isn't on the shelf in the office. I look in the tub on the bar, I look underneath the tills. I can't find it. Kieran finds the Lagunitas IPA lenses, says we've got a keg of that upstairs. So I go upstairs and unclasp the line from the Lupuloid, put it back to water, pull it through. I find a coupler for the Lagunitas, unscrew the product and gas, screw them onto the new coupler, attach them to the keg, fill the float, downstairs and get the lenses, the gasket stickers, stick them to the front of the fonts on the delta bridges, pull through the beer, put buttons on the tills on the computer in the office, send the new layout to POS.
Then I serve. I wipe the bar. I collect glasses. I serve. And then it is my break and I walk to the shop in the cold air of evening.
There is a green tree in the pavement that has dropped yellow leaves onto the ground. The yellow leaves are pale and they are crisp on the ground. A paving slab is cracked and juts jarringly out from its neighbour. Above me the stone facade of the central library looms. The neon signs shine purple and pink. The light creeps from the evening. The bark on the birch trees is peeling. A group of men pass laughing into the night.
I see these things. I feel them. The pressure of my feet inside my old trainers. The clouds spread flat across the sky. The irregular pulse of traffic down at the main road.
Everything vibrates with its own internal energy. Everything is the same one thing singing to get out. The delicacy. The majesty. This is the one and only moment in which each of us lives. We walk through this moment together. It is our home.
I take a breath. Hold it inside.
Then I walk back into the babbling din of the machine of the pub, the murmuring disturbance, groaning, wailing, where all is noise, all clamour, all fuss. I walk back inside, and I pick up a glass, and I get to work.
A keg beer runs out so I go upstairs to clean it. I put the line on water, go downstairs to pull it through. Gas sputters out, and nothing more. I go back upstairs. The inflow pipe is above the surface of the water in the water butt. I move the butt closer, unravel the hose, attach it to the tap in the sink, fill the butt with water, fill the bucket for line cleaner. I go back downstairs. The bar is busy, so I serve. I pull the line through to water. Go upstairs and switch the pipe to the line cleaner bucket; downstairs to pull it through. I wait. I serve. I pull through more line cleaner. Wait; serve. Upstairs I switch the pipe back to water, downstairs and pull it through. Upstairs I heft a Beavertown Lupuloid keg into place, find a coupler that fits the keg, look for the spanner, find the spanner, unscrew the product and gas lines from the old coupler, screw them onto the new one. The coupler is wet and the spanner is wet and my hand slips, and I jab myself in the arm. I yell. I get the coupler attached, clamp it onto the Lupuloid keg. I fill the float with beer. I go downstairs, look for the Lupuloid lens. It isn't in the plastic wallet for upcoming beers. I look through all the alphabetised drawers. Nope. It isn't on the shelf in the spirit cupboard. It isn't on the shelf in the office. I look in the tub on the bar, I look underneath the tills. I can't find it. Kieran finds the Lagunitas IPA lenses, says we've got a keg of that upstairs. So I go upstairs and unclasp the line from the Lupuloid, put it back to water, pull it through. I find a coupler for the Lagunitas, unscrew the product and gas, screw them onto the new coupler, attach them to the keg, fill the float, downstairs and get the lenses, the gasket stickers, stick them to the front of the fonts on the delta bridges, pull through the beer, put buttons on the tills on the computer in the office, send the new layout to POS.
Then I serve. I wipe the bar. I collect glasses. I serve. And then it is my break and I walk to the shop in the cold air of evening.
There is a green tree in the pavement that has dropped yellow leaves onto the ground. The yellow leaves are pale and they are crisp on the ground. A paving slab is cracked and juts jarringly out from its neighbour. Above me the stone facade of the central library looms. The neon signs shine purple and pink. The light creeps from the evening. The bark on the birch trees is peeling. A group of men pass laughing into the night.
I see these things. I feel them. The pressure of my feet inside my old trainers. The clouds spread flat across the sky. The irregular pulse of traffic down at the main road.
Everything vibrates with its own internal energy. Everything is the same one thing singing to get out. The delicacy. The majesty. This is the one and only moment in which each of us lives. We walk through this moment together. It is our home.
I take a breath. Hold it inside.
Then I walk back into the babbling din of the machine of the pub, the murmuring disturbance, groaning, wailing, where all is noise, all clamour, all fuss. I walk back inside, and I pick up a glass, and I get to work.
Saturday, 15 September 2018
Day 140: Lemonade
Evening drinks with Maria, who’s back in the country to do her master's degree in Manchester, and is in Sheffield for the weekend. I meet her and Zoe in Head of Steam, then we walk through the drunken revellers and street hustlers to Devonshire Cat. Just like old times. We order two lemonades and an orange juice, and four bags of crisps. Find a small table and sit with our heads bent in low, talking about work, and being young, and being old, and the nature of time, and our first memories, and the cartoons we watched as children. Maria tells us about Polish breakfasts and Polish weddings. Zoe says it feels like we are at a school dance, with the cool kids off dancing while we sit in a corner eating crisps. Zoe and Maria are both very beautiful, and I think much cooler than most everyone in the building, so the idea that the three of us are the unpopular ones makes me smile. Of course I feel I am that way - but I don't much worry about that.
And for me the evening is the kind of evening I wish I was having as a teenager. Not desperately trying to fit in somewhere I don’t. Racing to escape myself. But simply sitting and watching the gentle candles flickering in their pots. The fairy lights climbing the windows. Chatting with friends, enjoying this brief moment, then saying goodbye, and watching it go. Not minding that it doesn't last, that I'm sober and there is of course the usual boredom, and self-consciousness, and sadness of the night. I am getting better at resting in that moment, letting it be, accepting whatever it is that arrives.
I’m back home now, with a mug of tea and the silence of my bedroom at the top of the house. The lamp's bulb's light is reflecting in my phone screen, showing up all the small scratches in the glass. The bathroom fan is clicking. The computer is whirring. I can't hear any other sounds.
I’m back home now, with a mug of tea and the silence of my bedroom at the top of the house. The lamp's bulb's light is reflecting in my phone screen, showing up all the small scratches in the glass. The bathroom fan is clicking. The computer is whirring. I can't hear any other sounds.
And now this moment is ending, and here comes the next.
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